


no matter how much I want you back

by marionettesheart



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, I just never posted it, M/M, Time Loop, and I figured why not, but mainly angst, time loops, written way back in 2018, yes this uses NG+
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:35:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22033411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marionettesheart/pseuds/marionettesheart
Summary: Akira could repeat this story as many times as he wanted. The fact remains the same: the one person he wanted to save was Goro Akechi, and he's the one person he'll never succeed in saving. It didn't mean Akira was willing to give up on him, no matter how many failures it would take.
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 2
Kudos: 144





	no matter how much I want you back

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so I wrote this waaaay back when and let me just say how happy I am for the existence of P5R? Like. Yes, this is good, I needed that. But that said, this is an old fic, I just wanted to share it still.

The first time it happened, it took Akira getting to Kamoshida’s Palace to remember. He awakens to Arsene early because of it, calling up the Persona the moment the castle comes into view. The memories come flooding back in an instant, everything from _Metaverse, Personas, Velvet Room, Yaldabaoth,_ to going to sleep the night right before he was supposed to go back home thinking about _the boy he couldn’t save_ and never waking up the next morning.

Arsene laughs in his mind and tells him to get going, so Akira does. They avoid getting captured altogether this time, though he still leads them to the dungeons to find Morgana because they’d all be dead without the personification of Hope on their team. Morgana was all too happy to find a Persona user for him to use and didn't question things much, so it was easy for Akira to play along. The knowledge in his mind made getting through the Palace much easier. Too easy.

When he dreams of the Velvet Room that night, the real Igor isn't present, and though the fake eyes him curiously for awakening so quickly, he says nothing. Caroline and Justine don’t seem aware of his restart, either. Nobody except him knows that he was reliving the events to come for the second time.

With that in mind, Akira Kurusu makes a plan in his head. What little steps he could alter from his first run, so fewer people would get hurt, so he could do what he failed to do last time:

He’s going to save Goro Akechi.

* * *

It repeats again. Akira remembers straight away this time, from the moment he opened his eyes from his nap on the train to Tokyo. He remembers a getting second chance to try, but then failing to succeed. He remembers having Akechi on their side, only to turn away when confronted about Shido, and then things ended just how it did the first time around. Now he’s here again, the game restarted for the third time.

So he follows his steps again, even better than before. He tries to find out more about Akechi, saying just the right words to change snippets of his past to longer passages. He makes Akechi stay to talk instead of leaving when Akira finds him in LeBlanc. He pieces it together, what happened with his mother and Shido, and all those years he spent alone. He figures out how he became so fixated on taking revenge that he lets himself get soaked in blood, and picks out from all the things he didn’t know before, what the detective really wants.

With all the things he learns about Akechi, the one person he never got close to in his first run on the year, Akira’s resolve grows stronger. He doesn’t know yet, how much things will change, how much he can do outside of change smaller details, but he does know what he was going to do. 

He’ll try to save Akechi, because that’s all he can do.

* * *

Akira doesn’t always remember that he was redoing the year of his probation, and if he does, he doesn’t always remember at the same time. Sometimes he only remembers his previous run, sometimes he remembers multiple ones. But even when he doesn’t remember, a feeling would grow in his mind, pushing him to gather the Phantom Thieves, but more than that, to find Akechi and befriend him, as soon as he could.

So, despite never having met the boy before, when Akira runs into Akechi at the Shibuya station a month after moving to Tokyo, he approaches him. He says hello, throws around cheeky smiles and little compliments, and slowly befriends the ace detective, neither knowing the other’s secrets. Despite that, Akira learns a lot of things about Akechi, during this run simply another random student he met who happens to provide wonderfully good company. 

Akechi becomes a more constant fixture at Leblanc this time, to study or to work, and Akira gives him his coffee exactly how he likes it even on his first visit. “Intuition,” he answers with a teasing grin when Akechi comments on it because he doesn’t know either. _'I know you,'_ he thinks. Does he? Why?

“I researched you,” he jokes next time when he takes Akechi out for some sweets. The knowledge is in his mind, despite him not quite knowing where he learned it from. Akechi, ever so sharp, eyes him suspiciously but lets it slide. If you asked Akira now, he’ll be able to say that it was probably because the detective enjoyed the company, for once.

Weeks of texting and easy friendship later, the Phantom Thieves become known. Akechi is assigned to the case, and perhaps this puts an unwanted strain on their friendship because Akira winds up spilling the truth, one evening over coffee once Sojiro left the cafe.

What happens next was probably just a huge stroke of luck, but Akechi doesn’t turn him in. He offers his help, muttering about adults who hurt him too. Maybe it was his reluctance to lose the one friend he acquired not because of his status as a detective or ability to access the Metaverse because they were just friends this time.

And so, Akechi joins the team much earlier this time, and they breeze through the rest of the story much faster.

It only hurts more when Akira has to watch his friend die.

* * *

Once, Akira lets himself die, just to find out what happens. He brushes away all the other’s suspicions about Akechi, and so they never come up with the plan to save him. Sae never has to show him the phone and Akechi never gets transported to the Metaverse. He actually sees Akechi in that interrogation room, eyes cold, ready to kill. Ready to do anything to reach his goals, to end the man they both hate.

Akira wants to scream at him, yank out the person he’s grown so close to in a different time. ‘ _You don’t have to do this,’_ he wants to say. ‘ _Stop following his orders. I know you. There’s so much more you can be capable of.’_

When Akechi pulls out his gun, Akira apologizes to the rest of the Phantom Thieves. He knows they must be worrying them like crazy, and that he’s about to cause them even more pain. When Akechi shoots the guard, he apologizes to the others, everyone else he’s managed to save and befriend because they’ll be worrying about him too. They’re going to get hurt, too. This isn’t the right choice, he knows, to throw his life away and leave behind others to hurt and pick up the pieces. He’s leaving behind so many people.

He’s taking the wrong path. They’ll definitely end up blaming Akechi, and maybe he won’t get saved because of it, but he needs to find out. He’s been surviving all this long, maybe this is what he needs to do. Trade his life for Akechi’s, so the other boy can live. He’s tried so many other ways before, so maybe this is the one.

 _‘Not this way,’_ a tired voice inside of him says. _‘This isn’t going to work,’_ it continues, and Akira wonders it’s one of his Personas. 

Akechi points the gun at him. Akira closes his eyes and lets the other boy kill him.

* * *

Sometimes, Akira focuses on changing other things for the better. He gets to Shiho before Kamoshida does, and the girl is still in school, bright and smiling by Ann’s side. They get to Okumura before Akechi does, so Haru’s father is alive, albeit paying for his crimes. He brings up Futaba earlier and gets her out even sooner. Once, he even manages to get through to Sae earlier, and Makoto looks happier in that run than she does in any of the others.

In these games, Akira spends more time with his other confidants. He becomes good friends with Chihaya and works more regularly at the bar, talking with Ohya about the latest news. He introduces Shinya to Futaba and the two of them end up playing video games late into the night on a regular basis. He lets Mishima make some Phantom Thief merchandise with Yusuke’s help and even wears one of the keychains on his bag. He drags the Thieves out on trips to amusement parks and picnics and holds movie nights for them all.

He thinks, when he’s surrounded by friends attempting to cook some recipe Ann found in a magazine, that he can be happy enough like this. That for all the times he failed, he’s helped people plenty too, and maybe, if he doesn’t get to try again after this, he’ll be able to learn to live with that.

Despite this, he still can’t help but glance at the spot by his side when all the Phantom Thieves are present and wish that their one other member is present to fill up that space.

* * *

In an earlier loop, Akira makes a list. Little things he’s observed about Akechi, mundane things, things he should do something about. How he takes his coffee, obviously, and what kinds of food he likes. How he’s a huge Featherman nerd and putting him and Futaba in the same room with that as a conversation topic is basically setting off a hurricane. How pleased he is when he solves a certain problem. How much he enjoys cycling and bouldering (and how well-built his body actually is under all those layers, but that’s not important).

He also writes other, even smaller things. The way his eyes light up when talking about something he’s genuinely passionate about, or how they soften when he speaks of his fonder memories. His tendency to play around with his pen when he’s thinking when working. The little pleased sigh he does when Akira sets down a fresh cup of coffee in front of him. The small quirk his lips does when he finds something amusing but is trying to be serious. The eye-roll followed by a fond smile whenever Akira makes a stupid joke.

Those kinds of things.

He stares at the list in his hands and he’s not even sure why he wrote it down, much less what he plans to do with it. But it’s proof that Goro Akechi is very much human, a teenager failed by adults much like the rest of them, even more so perhaps than the rest of them, and he deserves to be saved. 

* * *

In one run, Akira remembers every single time he’s repeated the year. The times he’s seen Akechi die, the ones he remembers dying himself in, the ones where he reaches out to Akechi early and the ones where he waits until they eventually run into each other. All these roads lay themselves down in his mind, showing him every path he took before, what change affected what, which thing would cause the least damage. So many possibilities, so many he’s gone through already.

A constant thing remains in all of them: one of them has to die.

The game will end after the death, and Akira will wake up back on the train, sometimes with memories, sometimes without. He’s done this, over and over and over again, and he wonders how many lives he’s gone through. How many chances remain until he finally runs out and it’s game over for real, no retry option.

He wonders then, if he should really be doing this. He can give up if he wants to. Accept that fate has a plan that he can’t interfere with. He was going to run out of tries eventually, so why not just make things easier for himself? Stop trying to save him.

In the run where Akira remembers lifetimes’ worth of memories, he shakes his head and mutters to himself, “Of course not.” 

He could never give up on Akechi, no matter how many more times he needs to try.

* * *

He’s not sure which run it was when he puts a name to what he feels for Akechi and tells him for the first time. It’s one of the ones where late-night talks in Akira’s room is a normal thing for them, and that’s when it happens. They were talking about Akira’s friends from his hometown, and how crazy was it, _‘I’m actually telling him about my past,’_ he thought, followed by an _‘I think I’m pretty darn in love with him.’_

Just like that, despite knowing what the future has in store for them, Akira sits up and says, “I like you. A lot. Like, like-like you. ‘I want you to go out with me’ kind of like you.”

Akechi stares back at him, eyes wide, and Akira feels himself blushing and would be dying of embarrassment normally, but he’s been in love with this boy for years now, technically, and he needs Akechi to know. So he lets him know.

Then, with a blush of his own, Akechi says a quiet, “I like you too. In a ‘yes I’d love to go out with you’ kind of way.”

Akira beams at that and tackles the other boy onto his bed before wrapping his arms around him tightly. Akechi rolls his eyes but lets him snuggle up to him. He starts running his hair through Akira’s hair, muttering something about how he was kind of like a cat, and that it was a good thing Morgana wasn’t around (Akira on the other hand, was cheering internally).

They stay like that for the rest of the night, and Akira has never felt happier.

(But morning still comes, and he remembers. He remembers the times he’s failed before. He remembers that there’s a large chance he might fail now, and it’ll hurt more than ever before. He remembers that it’s Akechi, and he can’t ever stop trying).

* * *

Akira tries, after that, to keep telling Goro. This time, he finds Goro faster, spills out his feelings faster, and it helps. It helps and it makes things worse at the same time but it makes Akira so happy to be able to be at Goro’s side that he does it anyway.

Sometimes, when everything feels hopeless, Akira would call Goro and they would spend time curled up in bed together, a million unspoken words said between them. They never actually get to verbalize any of them. Between nightmares from Akira’s memories and Goro’s actions, this happens more often than Akira likes.

This night, on a run where Akira only remembers not all the loops but just enough, everything feels heavy. It was a bad week, with Goro’s assignments from Shido and just the general reminder that despite his little bits of happiness, the bad things are still present, and no matter how hard he tries, he can’t ever do enough. 

In Goro’s apartment, a blanket draped over both of them, Akira cries into Goro’s shoulder, and he apologizes. _I’m sorry I can’t find you sooner. I’m sorry you had to go through all that alone. I’m sorry he made you do all that. I’m sorry he’s still making you do that. I’m sorry I can’t do more. I’m sorry I can’t save you. I’m sorry I can’t save_ us _._

Goro, much like how Akira does on the nights where nightmares of living corpses come to haunt him and he mutters his own bitter apologies, seems to hear all the unspoken words. He holds Akira tightly until he calms down and presses a kiss against Akira’s forehead. “I’ll get away from him,” he says, a cold determination in his tone. “I’m not letting him control my life anymore.”

Despite this, Akira shakes his head and mutters a string of apologies, because he knows. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” over and over again. _It won’t be enough, it’s never enough, they’re going to take you away from me again._

On this run, Goro steps away from Shido, but Akira was right, it wasn’t enough. He sides fully with the Phantom Thieves this time, but Shido wasn’t happy about losing his puppet in the game. He wasn’t happy at all.

Akira holds Goro’s lifeless body in the real world this time, and curses whatever placed him in this game. He cursed all that damned Goro to this fate and yet forced Akira to repeat it over and over again, without end. He pulls Goro’s body closer to him and barely notices when the others arrive. Bodies in the real world are much heavier than in the Metaverse, he thinks.

* * *

Akira tries, on some of the runs where he and Goro are together, by each other’s sides, to take the hit for him. Every time, he prays to whatever is making him play this game, to let it end. To let his life be taken instead of Goro’s, so the other boy could live. He knows he’s hurting people by doing it, but they’ll be okay. He knows that now.

He barely registers in gunshot in his abdomen or the blood blooming out from him. Not any of his other injuries. Just Goro’s arms around him, those eyes looking awfully concerned and no, “Please don’t cry over me.”

 _My life for his_ , Akira pleads. _Just let him make it. Please._

It’s all he has left to give.

He dies warm this time, at least. His friends are nearly there too, and he gets to stare into Goro’s eyes. It’s not so bad.

* * *

By the time Akira tells Akechi the truth, the whole truth, he is tired. He is so, so tired. Too tired to keep his walls up, and by the time he notices, they’ve completely broken, and it all comes flooding out. How he remembers living this already, how he keeps seeing Akechi die (he doesn’t mention dying himself) and how he keeps waking up to do things all over again. Over and over again. Even if he doesn’t remember every single loop, it’s still so many.

He’s seen plenty of things happen. Better things, worse things. Times where he thinks he might be able to move on. Times where he begs for another chance. He’s seen his friends happy and sad, he’s seen the members of the Phantom Thieves shift and change, and despite everything that he managed to change, he can never change what he actually wants to.

“I just — I want to save you,” Akira finally chokes out. “It’s unfair. We’re supposed to save people who are screwed over by society and corrupt adults so why not —“ He draws in a shuddering breath and turns away. “I’m sorry,” he laughs through the tears. “This all must sound crazy.”

Akechi pulls him into a hug. Akira barely registers the tears soaking into his shirt when Goro buries his face into Akira’s shoulder. “I can’t believe…” Goro’s words are muffled from his position, but Akira hears him. “You’re doing all this for me. You…”

“I want to save you,” Akira repeats, and Goro pulls away. He shakes his head, smiling sadly at Akira. His eyes glimmer with tears.

“No, Akira, don’t you see?” Goro drew in a shuddering breath and wipes his own tears away. “The problem isn’t saving me. What you need to do is… is…” He pauses and leans forward to wipe Akira’s tears away. “You have to let me go.”

Akira shakes his head violently at that, a protest on the tip of his tongue, but Goro cuts him off. “You’ve done so much already. That’s enough for me, so, please. Let me go.”

* * *

"All I wanted to do was to save you, and I can’t even —“

“Akira. You’ve already done that. That and so much more.”

“But —“

“Thank you.”

_I have to let you go._

* * *

_“You have chosen to let him go. And for that, Trickster, we shall let you go.”_

* * *

When it ends, Akira forgets. When it ends, he does it the way he started it, like it’s the first time. No memories come to him, and no memory will. Akechi dies, and Akira stops holding on. It hurts, as always, but he does not remember.

When it ends, Akira goes home.


End file.
